I realise 2025 appears to look like a predetermined shitshow, particularly if you live in the US, so it would cool to hear peoples’ positive projects, goals, plans for the year.

Mine is pretty basic. Stay in remission, get swimming again and travel with my family.

Christmas/NYE was a blowout. I contracted RSV (a kind of flu) ended up in A&E three times, had to cancel a family trip to Marrakesh and got pneumonia on NYE.

Roll on a better year.

Gramsci wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2025 7:17 am I realise 2025 appears to look like a predetermined shitshow, particularly if you live in the US

With that in mind, I'm hoping very much that the incoming administration is a complete circus act and is able to get absolutely nothing done.

Personal goals are pretty much all health-related: finally breaking my alcohol habit (sober for 15 days as of today), maintain amount of exercise I've been doing, lose 20 pounds, and do whatever I can to not have to go on any regular prescription meds (at most risk of needing meds to treat high cholesterol at the moment).

Be kinder to myself.

Maybe get back to writing songs.

Hope to see you all this year.

Gramsci wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2025 7:17 am Mine is pretty basic. Stay in remission, get swimming again and travel with my family.

Christmas/NYE was a blowout. I contracted RSV (a kind of flu) ended up in A&E three times, had to cancel a family trip to Marrakesh and got pneumonia on NYE.

Best of health to you.

Like every year at this time I'm needing to tame my sugar addiction. It gets weirdly, self-loathingly impulsive around the holidays. I have a small cache of artisan chocolates that might be my last indulgences before I try and avoid all the candy and baked goods for a time.

I'm glad to say my family and professional life is all pretty good right now. With kids, both students and offspring maintaining pretty good is a goal in itself.

In the musical front after three albums of self produced material we're looking to shake things up and work with someone in a different space. This is a costly indulgence that's sending us to the other side of the country. We figured if we were going to pay someone it might as well be a personal hero. More specifics when we actually do it, I don't want to jinx anything. For now I'm in my happy place of writing prolifically and demoing stuff.

My hope is that stupid people will finally realize that "patriotic" FB posts with titles like "why don't pictures like this ever trend" are made by bot farms to sow discord.

More dead CEO's and billionaires.

ErickC wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2025 11:32 am My hope is that stupid people will finally realize that "patriotic" FB posts with titles like "why don't pictures like this ever trend" are made by bot farms to sow discord.

That’s killed whatever residual interest I had in Facebook. The feed has almost nothing but shit from groups I’m not a member of and bot BS.

Is that everyone else’s experience?

Gramsci wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2025 12:30 pm

ErickC wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2025 11:32 am My hope is that stupid people will finally realize that "patriotic" FB posts with titles like "why don't pictures like this ever trend" are made by bot farms to sow discord.

That’s killed whatever residual interest I had in Facebook. The feed has almost nothing but shit from groups I’m not a member of and bot BS.

Is that everyone else’s experience?

Yeah, seems like 90% garbage from fake/bot/AI groups these days. I had left and rejoined it a couple of years ago because a few of my acquaintances use FB posts and/or messenger as their main method of communication. Blah.

To give my partner the technical and strategic support he needs to work on his music.

To establish and defend stronger boundaries between my job and my creative and personal life.

To take a walk each day.

To start taking guitar lessons and learn to transcribe recordings.

Any broad-scale hope I have for this year would require billions of people around the world to suddenly change their worldview and choose not to be co-conspirators (usually against their own best interests) or sheep (by throwing off the yokes of their systemic oppression by any means necessary). That is not going to happen.

Personally, I hope to be able to visit my son a couple of times, for better health for my father, and for my friends to find happiness wherever it is to be found for them. More workable, I think.

More dead terrorists
More dead nazis
More dead pedophiles
(Am I doing this right?)